Description
Book SynopsisThe works of Walter Benjamin (1892--1940) are widely acclaimed as being among the most original and provocative writings of twentieth--century critical thought, and have become required reading for scholars and students in a range of academic disciplines.
Trade Review"This is an excellent introduction to Benjamin's thought, written with great clarity and richly located within his biography. Gilloch's focus upon Benjamin's reconstruction of the 'afterlife' of things enables him to reveal new interconnections and interpretive trajectories within Benjamin's themes and texts, whether they be his writings on language, literature, the city, the new media or the Arcades Project. A most welcome addition to Polity's series on contemporary thinkers."
David Frisby, University of Glasgow "A fine text to accompany a firsthand reading of Benjamin, such reading is necessary to understand the thinker critiqued here." Library Journal
"The book highlights some major motifs of Benjamin's work and will probably be of interest, above all, to students of media and related aspects of social history or theory" Brendan Moran, Philosophy in Review
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements viii
Abbreviations x
Introduction: Benjamin as a Key Contemporary Thinker 1
1 Immanent Criticism and Exemplary Critique 27
2 Allegory and Melancholy 57
3 From Cityscape to Dreamworld 88
4 Paris and the Arcades 113
5 Culture and Critique in Crisis 140
6 Benjamin On-Air, Benjamin on Aura 163
7 Love at Last Sight 198
Conclusion: Towards a Contemporary Constellation 234
Notes 249
Bibliography 289
Index 298
